Noticing the Unnoticed/ Framing the City

'Noticing the Unnoticed' is definitely the strongest concept that I have gained inspiration from during our group meetings. I feel that it is essential to have physical evidence to support these big statements, therefore took the opportunity with fellow textiles member, Kim, to go out and put our concept to the test. Every day we walk from A to B; taking in nothing other than the weather, or possible places to socialise.  

Using our concept as a starting point we decided that photographs would be the strongest evidential output that we could take from our trip. We decided to focus on the Northern Quarter- a place of mystery and artistic magic around every corner. Instead of sticking to the main roads, we took our adventures to places of hidden alleys and unusual paths, just looking. From my Easter research; looking to graffiti for inspiration had become a daily habit, alongside 'noticing' the strange places in which dandelions/weeds decided to place themselves. Taking influence from filters and other forms of image editing, we decided to use mirrors/ mirrored card in a way to distort the images, and create something unusual, and as a result came away with some very beautiful shots (if I do say so myself). 

I have really incorporating photography into our work today- it is a skill that I play with a lot in my spare time. The colours that have evolved from these pictures are interesting- especially the impact of the mirrored greys in contrast to the dandelion's yellows/ greens. 

Meeting: Colour, Material, Sponsors

It is proving very helpful meeting as a group as often as possible, as it means that we are able to discuss how we are getting on with the project, and and uncertainties that we are having. This morning we tried to pin down all of the ideas that have discussed over the past few weeks. The main concepts that we are working towards; 

changing perceptions. the dandelion. appreciating what already exists. negatives to positives. viewing the city in a different light. 

For the first time we also spoke about potential sponsorships that we could have for our design festival, as well as all of the companies/ schemes that are already in place in Manchester. Design/ art is everywhere.

As textiles students, we are constantly encouraged to think about materials and colour schemes as part of our practice. During our Locating Unit, myself and most of the textiles members in the group took part in Fiona's colour workshop, which proved very insightful and enjoyable. Taking inspiration from this day, we have found that having a colour/ material scheme is going to be essential in the process of creating physicality for our design festival. 

YELLOW: dandelions. happy colour. vibrant. sense of life, sunshine. 

GREY: reference to manchester's buildings. the sky/ weather connotations. 

RAW MATERIALS: as we are using the dandelion as a concept, sticking to raw materials will be a nice link to simplicity. brown paper, cotton, red brick. 

Milan Design Festival 2014

KEY THEMES:

textiles techniques unexpectedly making an appearance. creation of environments. telling stories/ creating themes. collective dinners: interaction and communication through food. signposting. 

MOOOI: 'the unexpected welcome' I am excited by this designer; using idyllic backdrops alongside their furniture in attempt to create an atmosphere. This idea could be translated around Manchester, using forgotten spaces in a creative, new way- in order to bring out the lost beauty of the city.

DEDON: creating an environment through surface. laser cutting. idea of pattern, structure and decor. I like the cleanliness of the white, with the layering of laser designs. Building up of layers is something that I enjoy doing through my own practice, so to see it on a large scale is inspiring.

Sarah Turner Bottle Research

'Sarah Turner is an award winning eco artist & designer making beautiful lighting & works of art from waste plastic bottles... Sarah's designs prove that... "just because a product is made from rubbish, it doesn't mean that it needs to look like it does!"'

http://www.sarahturner.co.uk

All of the bottles that Sarah uses in her work are collected locally and then reincarnated into a new life. Through techniques such as dying, cutting and sandblasting, the designer takes to the challenge of sculpting the bottles from a piece of 'useless rubbish', into a final product- something of great beauty and appreciation. 

I am interested in the concept of changing materials in a new and different way, alike to our design festival concept- changing the perceptions of the city from negative to positive . As well as the concept, this example of work works well with my chosen route of research: addition of colour to the city. As we are looking at dandelions, the examples above work to a similar colour scheme to our chosen colour palette for this unit. 

Plastic Bottle Workshop

Plastic bottles. An item that is accessible to all; carried around in our bags and then thrown away at leisure. As we had been speaking greatly about recycling and waste in the city, we felt that plastic bottles would be an interesting object to work with in a short amount of time.

The photographs before have been taken from around the Manchester School of Art. Reading the statistics, 27.5% of the waste found around campus is from plastic bottles, by far the highest waste product from the University.

The aim of the workshop was to de- and reconstruct the bottles, using a selective amount of tools, into an object of our choice. It was enjoyable to do an exercise that allowed us to all communicate and work as a group together, also to see how, as Textiles and Interactive Arts students, we engaged with the workshop differently. As a maker, I found it easy to engage with the 'making' and experimentation of the task, only made difficult by cutting my finger in the first few minutes of the workshop (we did say that the workshop could be dangerous for children). In comparison, it was apparent that some of the Interactive Arts students found it challenging to be given an object and be told to 'do' something with it, leading to frustration and annoyance. It just shows that people work differently. 

Banksy 'Mobile Lovers'

I adore Banksy. Even more so after his new mural was revealed to the world: Mobile Lovers. This piece I believe, captures life nowadays perfectly; instead of having relationships with people, we have relationships with technology, keeping in touch with each from behind a screen. People no longer engage with one another, with the world, with life. 

Whilst travelling into the city centre this morning, there were 46 people on the bus, 38 of which were looking at their mobile screens.  I'm sure that the other 8 people would have been doing the same if they hadn't been toddlers in their prams, or pushed up against the glass of the bus. It is disgusting. What has happened to the times that we used to sit and talk to one another, without the distraction of Facebook or text messaging? Yes, I am contradicting myself as I too am guilty of spending too much time looking at videos of sneezing pandas instead of getting on with life, but just think, if we were to put down all technology and interact with the world, how much we could achieve and how proud of ourselves we could be. 

Lomography Wall

As social media continues to appear in our group discussions, we have been trying to think of a way that it would be possible to incorporate media into our design festival, in a positive sense. We all enjoy taking photographs and focusing on the concept of viewing in the city in a new light, I feel it would be nice to combine the two. During Unit X last year, I came across the lomography wall based in the city centre. The wall is made up of a collage of photographs, layered together to create an overall beautiful object in the city. Somehow it would be a lovely idea to combine any photographs that we may take through the duration of our unit, but also any photographs that may be taken as a result of our exhibition. We spoke about having certain #hashtags that could be used on exhibition night, in order to easily group together all of our photographs. 

Discussion After Easter

We organised a group meeting for the first day back after the Easter holidays, in order to discuss our individual research from the past three weeks before tomorrow's tutorial. It was nice to see everybody's' different responses to research- thinkers and makers combined- and to discuss how we could now begin to translate our research into physical work. 

COLLABORATION: all have our own individual approaches towards one concept.
MANIFESTO: we thought that it would be nice to revise the manifesto workshop, and create our own manifesto for our design festival. Although we think it's nice for us all to contribute, I am interested in writing the manifesto, as is Aine so we shall do this together at a later date.
SIGNPOSTING: using stickers to promote the festival. graffiti. clean graffiti. looking at where design is already apparent.
VIEWING THE CITY: different approaches to 'viewing' the city. spoke about mirrors, filters for cameras, videos. looking up and down.
SOCIAL MEDIA: nowadays everybody uses social media, there's no running away from it. creating a twitter/ instagram feed for our festival means that people that are unable to take part in the festival, they could contribute via social media.
ACCESSIBILITY: the design festival should be accessible to all. As it is regarding Manchester, it doesn't mean that the festival should be restricted to those that live here.

After the meeting I was feeling slightly deflated, mostly because of taking in so much information in a short space of time. Now that we've had the meeting, I don't feel as though I can get on with any work until we've been to Federation House and had a tutorial with our tutors. I am looking forward to seeing the space that we will be working in for the next couple of the weeks, however it's annoying that we will be away from the comfort of our studio, and the embroidery workshops...

Kevin McCloud's Supersized Salvage

"Kevin McCloud challenges three designers to turn one plane - an Airbus A320 - into hundreds of amazing new products in a giant upcycling experiment. Their task is to find a new use for every single piece of the plane, leaving only an empty hangar behind them...

...The office pods and desk lamps, rickshaws and rocking chairs, luggage, storage and even jewellery that they fashion from this fallen giant will prove - in a spectacular and sustainable way - that creativity is a genuine solution to Britain's waste crisis...

..It's not just the size of this challenge that makes it tough; to master it, the designers need endless ingenuity, patience and the entrepreneurial skills and sales patter to sell their sometimes outlandish creations. It's a transformation on an unprecedented scale and Kevin's largest recycling project to date. If they can pull it off they'll prove that the sky's not the limit...."

 http://www.channel4.com/programmes/kevins-supersized-salvage/4od

Theresa Himmer

"Theresa combines art and architecture in a personal way and her creations, mostly site specific, interact perfectly with the big city life, New York. She is constantly experimenting with her art, without ever losing the ability to communicate with the surrounding space. After all, as she reveals, she is more inspired by the physical and cultural environment that is surrounding her rather than inner imagination"

http://www.yatzer.com/theresa-himmer-yatzer

Adding Colour to the City

In an ideal world I'd be allowed to take my paint brush and throw bright beautiful paints all around the  city, but unfortunately in Manchester I would end up in prison. Simple ideas.

LEGO: Looking at cracks in the walls and filling them in, an interesting and quite common example being pieces of lego (there is actually some examples around the Manchester School of Art campus)

THE INDIAN HOLI FESTIVAL: also known as 'the festival of colours', holi festival is a Hindu tradition- I am interested in the use of colour- with participant literally showering the city streets with paint, bring the pavements and streets to life.

STREET ART: The given example is by Mademoiselle Maurice; through use of colourful origami, she is able to liven up a usually dull urban environment. The colours also holding room for social engagement- 'what is it, what is it doing there?'

Collaboration: The Rug Company & Alexander McQueen at Milan 2014

I am already so very jealous of Mark & Fiona's trip to Milan Design Festival this week, however seeing this on Facebook makes me even more green-eyed. 

Collaboration between The Rug Company & Alexander McQueen at the Salone Del Mobile. After visiting The Rug Company earlier this year in NYC, I knew that McQueen already worked alongside the company, however to collaborate like this is something new and unique for the both of them.

http://www.therugcompany.com/blog/2014/the-rug-company-alexander-mcqueen-at-milan-2014/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=McQueen%20in%20Milan

Fashion & Textiles Museum London

ARTIST TEXTILES PICASSO TO WARHOL:

SARAH CAMPBELL:

Guerilla Gardening

Guerilla gardening isn't a new technique, it is the way that it is used as a concept and translated into physicality that makes it beautiful. Living in a rural area, and a village that is all about 'green', guerrilla gardening is a concept that I have grown up appreciating. 

My Dad and I are part of the village collective allotment- a scheme that was set up a few years ago in order to create collaboration and interaction between the village. We have our own large plot, and grow all of our own produce, which I love love love doing. And being a creative body, I have in fact planted flowers into old boots, teapots and other odd items (alike to those pictured below). 

Anyway, guerrilla gardening is a lovely, and easy concept that could be done by anybody, especially on a budget. If everybody in Manchester used this concept, it could instantly bring life and beauty to the city. 

http://www.annagarforth.co.uk/work/grow.html

Hélio Oiticica's Tropicália

'In Tropicália he aimed to topple universalising ideas of Brazilian culture by addressing the problem of the image, setting two of his shanty-like 'Penetrables' in a tropical scene with sand, pebbles and macaws, one of them a claustrophobic labyrinth whose single dark corridor leads to a television set. Eden (1966), in which one steps on sand, crushed brick and straw through favela-like enclosures, avoided imagery, but Tropicália's ideas had been unleashed.'

Hélio Oiticica's Tropicália has become of great inspiration for my unit x starting research. Oiticica's installations create engagement through use of space, encouraging the audience to immerse themselves and participate in their space- a concept that has been emerging through both collaboration with the interactive arts practice, and our research into design festivals.

'Oiticica's still-powerful and influential installations are the beating heart of 'Tropicália: A Revolution in Brazillian Culture', the first exhibition dedicated to the array of vibrant nonconformist tendencies associated with Tropicalism'

I am hugely inspired by the principal of adding colour to the city. I enjoy Oiticaca's use of fluorescent, over-baring colours and textures to replicate this concept, the arrangement of the artificial vs. the natural, forcing the viewer to engage with the piece. I feel this appeals to myself as a textiles student as it is familiar territory- looking at a physical 'made' space, rather than conceptual ideas. Addition of colour to a space is something that I am interested in looking at for our design festival. I am going to continue research into colouring the city through the physical.

Richard Saja

Trust New Art: Kedleston Hall: 'Promenade' Susie MacMurray

During Susie's lecture, I was most fascinated by her site specific installation at Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire. Entitled Promenade, 105 miles of gold embroidery thread were wrapped pillar to pillar in the mansion's great hall, as part of a scheme set up by the Trust New Art programme.

'Promenade draws on several aspect's of Kedleston's history. Inspired by the mansion's opulent style and gilt fittings, MacMurray wound 200km of gold thread around the pillars of the Marble Hall, a reference to the way visitors would 'promenade' around the property's contents. The gold is a specific reference to the peakcock dress, embroidered by Indian craftsmen and worn by Lady Curzon, wife of the Viceroy of India, who owned the property in the early 20th Century'

I am excited by this piece in particular the responses given by it's audience- 'over 15,000 comment cards were collected and logged, with responses both very positive and very negative'. What I like is that it sparked a reaction and caused interaction from the public, a lot like the aims of our group members from Interactive Arts. Thinking to design festivals, the aim is to create public engagement in Manchester.

Mancunian Way

?disused space. unloved. abandoned.... 

... street art. beauty. colour in the city?

New York High-line

Researching into abandoned spaces, the New York City High-line is a perfect example of a piece of forgotten space being used as a positive. During our visit to New York, we spent a morning on the high-line, a mile walk, with the most beautiful views. It was inspirational. The concept of seeing the city in a new light. The high-line is actually an abandoned train line. The weeds, left by the council, are beautiful. Walking down the high-line, the views were phenomenal of across the city. The amount of colour is also spectacular- buildings, monuments, graffiti- an aspect that I want to bring to Manchester's design festival. 

Abandoned Spaces

After discussing the idea of 'abandoned spaces', myself and Ellie spoke about where we live. Hundreds of cramped student/retired folks houses with no gardens, no greenery and no attempt of communication for fellow neighbours. Joining these houses- small, disused back alleys, gated off and over-grown with weeds. 

I find the principal of having these dark, un-lit back alleys EVERYWHERE very odd. We constantly moan about the lack of space for socialising between neighbours or just somewhere to sit when the sun is out; there is space, it is just being used in the wrong way. How nice it would be if these streets were made into a place for neighbourhoods to interact with one another. At home our village has many community spaces- a village allotment for example- if these places of abandonment could be recognised and changed into somewhere inviting, we would interact with people around us a lot more, instead of being stuck inside, on our social media websites and mobile phones. 

Salford Quays By Night

Two concepts that I am particularly interested in researching further in this project are 'looking at what already exists' and 'adding colour to the city'. 

Taking a walk in Salford Quays by night sums up the intentions of the two theories perfectly. Something as simple as the lighting from the city reflecting on the Quays. The reflections remind me of little embroidery samples; I could imagine these images translated into stitch. In terms of creating  physicality for this unit, a series of samples could be created from photographs take from areas around the city. Through bright embroidery threads, this could be a creative way of highlighting colour and design in the city (without going and physically painting things and quite possibly getting arrested). 

Pre-Easter Meetings

As we are breaking up for Easter, we decided that it was essential to meet as a group a few times this week in order to make sure that we are all on the same wave length with our research and ideas.

(Studio Manifold did say that the key to collaboration was tea and cake!)

our overall mantra "to come up with design solutions to highlight and draw attention to the unnoticed, retraining the way people view their city"

SMALL CHANGES: small but significant. 'fits in the palm of your hand'. exposing nature in the city. manageable.
REINVENTION OF 'DESIGN FESTIVAL': unconventional approach. creating a design festival to help people in Manchester fall in love with their city again.
COLOUR THE CITY: colour maps. paint/yarn bombing. stop Manchester from being 'grey'. highlighting colour in the city- graffiti, street signs, window displays.
COLLABORATION: makers and thinkers combined. workshops.
nice to see that everything becomes linked ie manifestos, guest lectures, last year's unit x
HACKING THE CITY: taking control of the city. car parks. cause an intervention. ie take over a car park at night time. 'remembering forgotten treasures'.
ABANDONED SPACES: forgotten space. unused. waste land.
NOTICING: viewing the city in a new light. make people n o t i c e. retraining your senses, look up and down instead of ahead all of the time.
WEEDS: what's worse, weeds being in a space, or nothing at all being in a space? Guerilla Gardening approach.
LOGO: the dandelion symbol appeared to be a group favourite for the branding for our 'design festival'. Looking at the dandelion as a weed, yet it is a beautiful flower. simple. recognisable. changing from dandelion to seed heads, alike to 'making a change'.
VISUALS: physical outputs. showing progression. drawings. sampling. notes. presentation to panel. physical sense to festival eg maps. tickets. packaging.
KEY CONCEPTS: nature. green. transport. weeds. accessibility. disused spaces. 'forgotten'. simplicity. negatives into positives. physicality. interaction. small gestures. conversation.

I feel that after this week I have come away from the group meetings looking at ideas and research in a different light. The collaboration process is one that appeals to myself greatly. I enjoy communicating and brain-storming as a group/ smaller sub-groups in order to express our own opinions, strengths and practices, but also to learn from one another and take inspiration from each other's ideas/ thought processes. Making friends and networking is also a positive aspect of this unit, and something that I enjoy doing in general in the Art School. I find these qualities to be life-skills that are fundemental in the art practice, therefore starting to work on these skills for the duration of our unit is essential for our futures. 

Pre- Easter Tutorial

During our final tutorial with Mark and Fiona before our Easter break we ran through the ideas and concepts that we had spoken about yesterday, all of which seemed to result in positive feedback. In addition to yesterday's notes, we discussed the idea of job roles/ where people's strengths and weaknesses lay in the group and how we were going to be working over the Easter break.

This year Easter falls at a particularly irritating time, right in the middle of our unit x schedule; we have only just began our research, and haven't settled on a particular concept as of yet, meaning that the addition of this break could cause confusion between ideas and ways of working. Setting up a Facebook group has proved to be a successful way of communication, a piece of social media that is (unfortunately) so frequently used by all.

Our group has expanded over the past few weeks from 6 to 10/11 people, meaning that it's a lot harder to keep one another up-to-date with what's going on and who is doing what. I've never enjoyed working in large groups as I feel that it holds room for bitchiness, therefore when the option to split into smaller sub-groups with an over-arching concept came into play, I felt more than happy to do so. 

ROLES: it seemed wise to create a list of jobs roles that were already forming from our research into Design Festivals, using this as a guide for our Easter work:

1. Branding/ graphics

2. Marketing/ packaging

3. Production/ Social media/ films

4. Location research/ mapping

5. Background research

6. Market research/ public communication.

7(?) possible leadership role. As we are working in such a large group, I cant understand why we would possibly need someone to take on this role, however with so many big characters and different ideas still being discussed, it really isn't something that should be set in stone right now.

As I am a maker, I can find it really hard in my own practice to come up with solid concepts quickly. Instead, I enjoy the experimentation and research process of our projects, only after a few weeks then deciding to create a strong theme for my portfolio. I have decided that I am going to be focusing on the physicality of a design festival, as that is where my strengths lye, looking at designers/ artists of interest, and seeing where I can take inspiration for our own project.

3D Printing Fashion

Turning research to my own practice, I am intrigued by the use of 3D printing in terms of fashion and clothing wear; looking at designers Bradley Rothenberg and Iris Van Herpen. Whilst in New York, I was lucky enough to be placed on a studio visit to studioBRAD, amazed by the creation of clothing through 3D printed designs. Similarly to Iris Van Herpen, both designers approach their textiles constructions as a weave design. Their clothing is made from structural printed pieces and then structurally interlocked together. Both designers come from architectural backgrounds, using their knowledge of structures and materials to create these beautiful pieces of fashion.

I have to say that although I am not a fan of 3D printing in the sense of creating 'crap' , I find these pieces of work very special. When looking at the designs from my practice of embroidery, I can envisage these designs stitched as delicate lace or possible textile installations in the city. 

http://bradleyrothenberg.com

http://www.irisvanherpen.com